“Check out the portion of the presentation when Steve Jobs demos the AppleTV and you’ll see the concept of Flickr photocasting incorporated into that product. Hook one of those up to your HDTV and with a few clicks, you can be “catching” a photocast or screensaver cast from your friends — or favorite organization — via Flickr or other RSS-fed sources. Frankly, however, I think I’d still hook up a Mac mini to my HDTV rather than an AppleTV, but the concept is well demonstrated with the AppleTV.”

Background: I’ve written before how the AppleTV has always been a confusing product for me. I’m glad that today’s announcement is a free software update for the device as I have one sitting atop my TV at home and will blog later about what the whole Apple TV / iTunes renting / Flickr photocasting thing is like. I still think if I were going to be purchasing an HDTV anytime soon (and I think most of us are going to have to at some point) there’s no way I’d settle for just the Apple TV when for about $300 more for a Mac mini, you can do everything an Apple TV does, and use the HDTV as a computer, not just a video streaming device. But, hey, I’ve been wrong many, many times before.

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Jon – I can understand Apple wanting to provide users a “free” upgrade that turns their AppleTV into a vending machine/jukebox for HD movies at $5 a pop. It’s the free that may end up costing me lots. ; ) (I guess also the iPod Touch announcement is seen as new applications — you and I have both gone through this with Macs.)

Launched in August, 2000, RexBlog.com is the personal blog of Rex Hammock, founder/ceo of Hammock Inc., a customer media and marketing services company founded in 1991 in Nashville. Rex is also founder/helper-in-chief of SmallBusiness.com.(...)